donderdag 16 oktober | 9:40

Malte
Seminars are boring. You have to be quiet, sit around for hours and listen to uninteresting lectures about even more uninteresting topics. The food has no taste, there are no parties, the people are boring and, well, they just are not fun. It is always the same... really?

Togetthere seminars are different! At least ours was. "We" are 19 volunteers coming from four European countries: Hungary, Germany, Wales and Sweden. Right now all of us are back in their projects around the Netherlands. However some weeks ago we were in De Glind enjoying the introduction seminar.

Four days without sleep, but with a lot of fun. We did workshops, played volleyball, visited Amersfoort, talked to real Dutch (wo)men and even listened to some short lectures which were surprisingly interesting.

The biggest questions were about ourselves: What are my talents? My expectations for the next year? What are my rights as a volunteer? Or my duties? And the most important one: How can I make sure that there is still money at the end of a month and not still month at the end of money?

In small circle-groups we discussed faith, love, music, sports and even politics. We spent nearly every evening together at the bar, continuing our talks or just having fun, dancing and playing games. By the way: PimPamPet is much more fun when you do it in at least four languages. There was lots of cheating, I'm sure.

Oh yes and different dialects. After two weeks in the projects all the volunteers were quite happy to speak their own language again. We heard Dutch sentences, Hungarian phrases, German words and Welsh numbers. A little bit confusing. That is how it must have been in Babel ages ago. Of course, next time all of us will speak perfect Dutch!
See you at the mid-term seminar, guys!

Malte

Malte Büschen is een Duitse jongen die dit jaar bij het Mission House Amstelrank in Amsterdam woont en werkt. Malte heeft zijn stukje nu nog in het Engels geschreven. Later in het jaar gaat hij natuurlijk ook proberen om Nederlands te schrijven.